ave enough resolution to say no. The temptation to obtain a
glimpse of the fashionable world of which she had read so much and seen
too little would be too great to be resisted; she would go even if it
were to have her heart stabbed with a fresh pain, and to come home to
weep herself to sleep!

"My dear, your sister will have plenty of friends to ask without
thinking of Sylvia. She won't find it plain sailing looking after a big
house like that. I should advise her to engage a housekeeper if she
doesn't want to be cheated right and left. I know what servants are
when the mistress is never in the kitchen to look after the scraps. I
daresay I might be able to help her to find a suitable woman in
connection with our different agencies. I'll inquire for you if you
think she would like it."

"Dear Miss Munns, how kind of you! I'll write to Esmeralda at once, and
I daresay she would be most grateful. You make me quite ashamed of
myself when I think of all the work you do, and how lazy and useless I
am in comparison!" cried Bridgie earnestly. Her grey eyes were fixed on
Miss Munns's face with the sweetest, most unaffected admiration, and
Sylvia looked at them both and thought many thoughts.

Miss Munns did indeed give both time and strength to charitable work,
and withal a generous share of her small income, but her interest was of
the head, not of the heart, and she was sublimely ignorant of her
failure to help or comfort. Bridgie thought she was not helping at all,
and was ashamed of herself because she was on no committees, and knew
nothing of authorised agencies. Her ignorance was so sweet that it
would be a sin to enlighten it, but there was something in Sylvia's
expression which aroused her friend's curiosity.

"What are you thinking of, Sylvia?" she asked. "Something nice?"

"Very nice!" said Sylvia, smiling. She had just recalled a quotation
which seemed as though it might have been written to describe Bridgie
O'Shaughnessy--

"Sweet souls without reproach or blot,
Who do God's will and know it not!"

CHAPTER TWENTY.

A LUNCHEON BASKET.

Esmeralda announced her arrival in town on the first of May, a week in
advance of her house-party, so that she might have leisure to visit her
brothers and sisters, and put the final touches to her own preparations.
She did not mention the hour of her arrival, but this was easily
calculated, and at home in Rutland Road, Bridgie and Pixie held eager
comm